


The Water Ghost

by SweetHeaven



Category: Free!
Genre: No tags so that I don't make spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 09:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetHeaven/pseuds/SweetHeaven
Summary: Haru and his friends have never thought much about the existence of ghosts, but that might change when strange things start to happen in the Iwatobi SC building.





	The Water Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a Halloween story, but work made it impossible to have it ready on time, so it has become an All Hallow's Day story.  
> My sister gave me the idea for the plot.  
> In case anyone wants to know, while I was writing this I was listening to Pan's Labyrinth Lullaby non-stop.

The hot air inside the club building was suffocating compared to the frosty weather outside. Haruka and Makoto cleaned their boots at the doormat before advancing any further into the hall.

They had just finished when they saw a small figure running towards them at full speed.

"Haru-chan! Mako-chan!" Nagisa shrilled, "guess what? There is a new kid!"

"Really?" Makoto asked, all soft eyes and gentle smiles.

Haru , on the other hand, didn't find that information interesting enough to justify Nagisa's excitement, but the blond bundle of energy was just like that.

"Yes! I've seen him just now! He seemed a bit lost, actually, looking around all the time as if he was trying to find someone," Nagisa grabbed Makoto's wrist and pulled, "Let's go, I want to see him swim!", he said, still too loud for Haru's liking.

"Nagisa! We have to change first!" Makoto chuckled. Haru was already on his way to the locker room. He didn't want to delay his contact with the water any longer.

They changed quickly, Nagisa bouncing nervously. He was an extremely outgoing child and he got along with everyone in the club. For him, the arrival of a new kid was probably a big deal.

They got to the pool area and Haru hurried to the starting block. He wanted to dive in immediately, but Nagisa wouldn't just let him.

"There he is!" he shouted, pointing his finger at a lonely kid who was standing next to a bench not far from them, looking around.

Haru recognized him at once. That bright red hair was unmistakable.

Rin Matsuoka, from Sano. They had competed against each other a couple of times and Haru had noticed him right from the start. After all, it was the first time he saw someone who felt the water as much as him -which had somehow pissed him off.

And even if Haru hadn't paid him any attention because of that, he would have ended up noticing him anyway because that kid wouldn't stop pestering him after their first race.

Apparently, there was something in the way Haru swam that Matsuoka found fascinating. He kept following Haru around the facilities in which competitions were held, telling him how fast Haru was, how good he was and how he definitely _had to_ swim with him in a relay team.

Haru was not interested in that and he had been very clear about it, but that boy was so damn intense, to the point he became annoying.

Haru wasn't really surprised that he had somehow ended in the Iwatobi Swimming Club, but he was slightly bothered.

If Matusoka thought that by joining their club Haru would be more inclined to swim a relay with him, he had another thing coming.

"Nanase!" a voice that Haru also recognized shouted. Matsuoka was waving at him, and not only was he attracting annoyed glances to himself, but people were looking at Haru too.

Haru sighed. Well, it was better to be done with that as soon as possible.

He approached him closely followed by Makoto and Nagisa.

"Matsuoka, what are you doing here?" he asked, straight to the point.

"Uh? What do you mean? I've come to swim with you! Isn't it obvious?" the other boy grinned.

"Hello!" Nagisa chimed in. "I'm Nagisa Hazuki! What's your name?" he asked, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I'm Rin Matsuoka!" Rin said, his hands on his hips and a dazzling smile. In Haru's opinion, he looked a bit full of himself.

"Nice to meet you, Rin-chan!" Nagisa said, taking Rin's hand and shaking it vigorously. "These are Makoto and Haru, but it seems you already know them," Nagisa pointed at them.

Makoto waved with a shy smile. Haru turned away and headed to the starting blocks, hoping that his intentions would be clear. He had no interest in any relay team and that kid was wasting his time.

Rin , however, seemed unfazed by Haru's blunt actions and happily followed him, choosing the lane next to Haru's favourite one.

Both dived in at the same time. Rin's presence in the water was strong, an energy unlike anything Haru had ever experienced with other swimmers.

It could have bothered him, but somehow, it made him feel the water in a way that was more intense than ever. It was pushing him forward, with such a power that for a second Haru felt he was losing control of himself.

In the end, spending the evening swimming next to him was not as bad as he expected.

If he was honest to himself, he still wasn't interested in swimming a relay, but perhaps having that kid in the same club would be better than Haru had anticipated.

. . . .

Two weeks had passed since Rin Matsuoka had joined the Iwatobi SC, and somehow, after spending their evenings swimming together, he had ended up becoming friends with Haru, Makoto and Nagisa. They were even on first-name basis already.

Rin was intense and pushy and he could be a bit of a brat when he showed his competitive side, but to Haru's surprise, he was also unexpectedly funny to be with.

It was true that their personalities clashed a lot, but Haru found that in spite of his annoying traits, it was actually easy to like Rin.

They were getting dressed in the locker room after a very good session when Rin clapped Haru's shoulder happily.

"Ah, I'm so glad I finally can swim with you!" he grinned. "You know, you should consider the idea of swimming a relay, and there's this upcoming tournament…" he added, faking nonchalance.

"Don't start with that again," Haru sighed.

"Haruuu," Rin whined, "why not? Ok, listen to me, my dad used to be a swimmer when he was a kid, you know? And he always talked about how great it had been to swim a relay with his friends. I've always wanted to do that, too!" he explained, gesticulating to emphasise his words.

"And?" Haru asked, unimpressed.

"And now I can do it! I'm sure we can make a great team!" Rin voice was starting to be too loud.

Haru shushed him.

"I told you that you were wasting your time if you came here looking for a teammate," he said with a tone that left no room for discussion.

"Tsk, I can't believe how stubborn you are," Rin pouted. "You have no idea how difficult it was to convince my mom to let me change clubs. And my grandma? Ha! She doesn't even want me to be a swimmer, especially if I train here!"

"Uh? Why not?" Nagisa chimed in. that was the kind of thing that made him curious.

"She told me that many years ago, a child drowned in this pool," Rin said, very serious. "It seems that he sneaked in when it was closed because he wanted to swim, but since it was dark, he couldn't see well and hit his head with the wall. He wasn't found until the next morning," he finished in a whisper.

"I had never heard of that story!" Nagisa exclaimed.

"Well, of course, coach Sasabe is not going to tell the kids such a thing! And it probably happened before he worked here, anyway," Rin shrugged.

"I'm not going to swim a relay with you just because you are defying your grandma," Haru said. If Rin wanted to confront his family about his wish to be a swimmer, that was his choice, but Haru had nothing to do with it.

"Arrrggggh! You're impossible!" Rin threw his head back exasperated and sighed in an overly dramatic way.

Haru could only laugh quietly at his antics.

. . . .

One week later, Rin was still going on about it. Haru wondered if his pushy friend would ever get tired of trying.

"Honestly, Rin, why don't you just ask your friends in Sano?" Haru sighed for the umpteenth time that evening.

It was something that he couldn't really understand. Rin had good friends in Sano, and judging by the way he spoke, he considered them better swimmers than the kids in Iwatobi.

He often talked about the Sano swimmers, how good their times were, how perfect their technique was, how much fun they had together…

Sometimes, it was hard to believe that he had left all that just because he wanted to swim with Haru.

"It has to be you, I know it!" Rin said crossing his arms stubbornly.

For the first time, Haru started to feel that maybe, just _maybe_ , he could accept Rin's offer. But he wasn't really sure he wanted to do it, so he preferred to keep quiet about it.

"And then you say I'm the stubborn one," he mumbled. "We're done, are you coming?" he asked, towelling his hair.

"Nah, I'm going to swim a couple of laps more. See you tomorrow!" Rin replied before diving in the pool again.

Haru, Makoto and Nagisa waved goodbye at him even though he couldn't see them and went to the locker room to shower and get dressed.

"Ah, I'm tired today!" Nagisa said stretching his arms while they walked down the corridor.

As they were approaching the reception area, they heard voices. They belonged to Tanaka and Fumino, coach Sasabe's employees. Haru had the impression that they were arguing.

"…you want me to do? I can't be checking every five fucking minutes!" Tanaka was saying in a loud voice.

"You wouldn't have to check every five minutes if you checked thoroughly the first fucking time!" Fumino replied, even louder.

The kids didn't dare to go any closer, embarrassed by the colourful language and not wanting to get involved in some adults quarrel in any way.

They saw coach Sasabe striding towards the two men, his anger clearly shown on his face.

"What do you think you are doing?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Sa-Sasabe-san…" Tanaka and Fumino stuttered in unison.

"Care to explain what this is about?" Sasabe crossed his arms over his chest.

"Uh…well… Something happened last night and… we were just wondering if there's some way to prevent it from happening again…" Tanaka explained vaguely.

"Something happened last night? What do you mean?" Sasabe arched an eyebrow.

"Well, yesterday evening, when all the kids had already left, we started with the cleaning. We were mopping the corridor outside the pool area, just next to its door, when we heard a noise, and, yeah…" Tanaka elaborated, although he still seemed reluctant to tell the whole story.

"And?" Sasabe was growing impatient. He looked at Fumino, who hadn't said a word yet.

Fumino sighed. "It was a splashing sound, as if someone had just dived in the pool. We rushed in to check what it was. I mean, we had already cleaned that area and the lights were off, we were worried that a child had stayed behind and was swimming in the dark," he paused, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, unsure of how to word the rest of the story.

Sasabe urged him to continue with a fast wave of his hand.

"When we were inside, we could hear the sound of someone swimming. Everything was silent, so it was not difficult to identify such a noise. And… I'm pretty sure I saw a shadow on the water, moving forward. Tanaka ran to the switch to turn on the lights, but… well, when the place was completely lit, we saw that the pool was empty," he finished, slouching his shoulders.

"That's impossible!" Sasabe's arched eyebrows almost met his hairline.

"I swear there was no one!" Fumino stated, his jaw tense.

"Are you sure it wasn't a child who ran away when the lights started to flicker? They need some time to be completely on," Sasabe tried to reason.

"No, we checked," Tanaka shook his head. "We had closed the door behind us when we got in, and if someone had opened it to flee, we would have heard it. We looked behind the benches too. We searched every corner."

"Were there any footprints?" Sasabe asked, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

Tanaka shook his head again.

The three men seemed lost for words.

"Perhaps it was some technical problem? Something that caused bubbles? Maybe one of the filters was acting wonky?" Fumino finally asked. There was a certain pleading tone in his voice, as if he was begging the others to say that his theory made sense and they didn't have to worry about unexplainable phenomena.

Neither Sasabe nor Tanaka looked convinced, but they didn't argue Fumino's suggestion.

"Well, I'll see if a couple of security cameras in the pool area would be too bad for our budget," Sasabe said after several seconds of silence. "Let's go back to work."

The three men walked away to resume their tasks.

Haru, Makoto and Nagisa remained immobile, unsure of what to make of the story they had just heard.

Haru felt Makoto's hand pulling at his sleeve, which meant his friend was scared of Tanaka and Fumino's experience.

"Haru-chan," Nagisa started in a serious voice, his usually bubbly self nowhere to be found. "Were they talking about a gho- a ghost?" he asked, getting closer to Haru and Makoto.

"Ghosts don't exist," Haru stated, avoiding eye contact with his friends.

In all honesty, he had never actually wondered whether ghosts existed or not, as he had never been in a situation in which the presence of a spirit seemed the only possible explanation.

But what could he say? It was clear his friends were scared and didn't want to make it any worse.

"But you heard them!" Nagisa insisted. "They heard someone swimming! They _saw_ someone!"

They remained silent, each of them thinking of a rational explanation for what had happened.

"What are you doing, standing here?" Rin's voice startled them.

Makoto yelped and Nagisa turned towards the voice so fast that he almost made Haru fall.

"Rin," Haru muttered. "Don't creep up on us like that," he scolded, annoyed by the scare.

"Ah, sorry," Rin rubbed his neck awkwardly. "I didn't know you hadn't heard me coming! You are so lost in thought…" he said, the unspoken question clear in his red eyes.

"We just heard coach Sasabe talking to the staff, it seems there is a ghost in the pool" Nagisa explained, his eyes wide in fear and excitement.

"A ghost? Really?" Rin chuckled and started to walk towards the door.

"Yes, that's what they said!" Nagisa protested, following Rin.

"Well, actually they didn't say that" Haru clarified. "They just said they heard a noise and saw a shadow but then there was no one…"

"But doesn't that mean that there was a ghost, even if they didn't see it?" Makoto asked, stealing scared glances at the corridor walls while they walked as if he was expecting a ghost to walk through them right then.

"You're scared of something you haven't even seen? Of something that might not even exist? Oh wow, I never thought Iwatobi swimmers would be scardy cats!" Rin cackled.

"We are not!" Nagisa exclaimed, clenching his fists.

"Yeah, yeah…" Rin waved his hand dismissively. "I'll see you guys tomorrow, try not to be too scared of the dark on your way home!" he started running, still laughing.

"We are not scardy cats…" Nagisa pouted.

Haru sighed.

"Let's go home," he said, wondering if Rin was right and they were only a bunch of cowards.

. . . .

One evening, a couple of days later, Haru arrived late in the club because he had forgotten his homework at school and he had to go back to retrieve it.

The fact that his time in the water had been reduced darkened his mood considerably. It must have been obvious that something was wrong because Rin even refrained from pestering him about the relay team.

At the end of the training sessions, coach Sasabe went to talk to him while his friends went to the locker room.

"Is there something wrong?" the man asked, clapping his shoulder without much strength.

"No," Haru replied, averting his eyes. He suddenly felt incredibly childish for getting so down over such a thing.

"C'mon, I've seen you swimming today, and that was not you," coach Sasabe insisted.

"It's nothing, really," Haru said. "I just had a bad day at school, I was scolded for something I hadn't done, then I forgot my homework and I had to go back to get it, it took me a long time to finish it and by the time I arrived here it was so late and I barely had any time to swim," he looked down. Haru had known coach Sasabe for a long time and he knew the man was aware of his fixation with water.

"Ok," coach Sasabe sighed. "I'll tell you what, I'm going to be cleaning around for a while, and then I have some stuff to do out. I'll let you swim while I'm still here, and then, while I run my errands, you'll get ready to go back home, ok?" coach Sasabe smiled.

"Ok," Haru nodded. "Thank you," he mumbled.

Coach Sasabe ruffled his hair.

"It's alright, but you have to promise me, ok? You won't swim if you are on your own," he said with a serious expression.

"I promise," Haru said in a solemn voice.

He jumped in the pool again and swam some more laps while coach Sasabe was cleaning and putting away floats and pool noodles.

After a while, he noticed the man was looking at him from the edge of the pool.

"It's time to get out," he said gently. He waited until Haru got out of the water. "Please, don't use the shower at the farthest left, the pipe is blocked," he added before leaving.

Haru wanted to protest or beg for five more minutes, but he had given coach Sasabe his word, and he didn't want to disappoint him.

When he arrived in the locker room, everyone was gone. He assumed coach Sasabe had told his friends not to wait for him.

The temperature in the room was a bit colder than usual, but it was pleasant enough to get undressed and have a shower.

The hot, spraying water felt nice on his cold body as it washed away all the bad sensations he had experienced during the day.

A good swim and a good shower were all he needed to feel better.

And a delicious mackerel fillet for dinner once he got home would be the icing on the cake.

He turned off the water and, feeling about the wall outside, he grabbed his towel, which was hanging from a small plastic hook. Just when he was about to come out of the shower, he heard a noise.

Haru stopped dead in his tracks. Wasn't he supposed to be alone? He waited for several seconds, wondering if he had really heard something or if finally Nagisa and Makoto had succeeded in making him a paranoid.

_ 'Tsk, this is stupid,' _ he thought, gritting his teeth. He realised he must have imagined it, yet he couldn't bring himself to leave the security of the shower cubicle.

He finally grabbed the curtain and pulled it open hard, annoyed at himself for acting in such a way.

He hadn't even taken a step out when he heard it again. A _squeal_. A long, slow sound coming from somewhere on his left.

Before Haru could determine the exact source of that creaking sound, it stopped and was immediately followed by the strong noise of spraying water.

He peeked out of the stall. The locker room was empty and a solitary bag -his own- was lying on the bench.

Yet _someone_ was, apparently, having a shower in another stall.

Haru ventured out of the cubicle and dried himself as fast as he could, trying to ignore the uneasiness creeping up on his stomach.

While he was getting dressed, he stole a glance at the group of stalls on his left and he shivered.

The sound was coming from the cubicle at the farthest left. The one coach Sasabe had forbidden them to use _because the pipe was blocked_.

Thinking rationally, someone had just decided to disobey the coach's orders and had found a way to make the shower work because they wanted to use that particular stall for some reason. Why anyone would want to do such a thing was beyond Haru.

The problem was that there were no more bags around, no clothes and no towels. Whoever was there was going to come out any minute now totally naked and, apparently, with no intention of getting dressed.

Haru put on his trainers and, while he was lacing them, he took a peek at the bottom of the stall. If the legs were those of an adult, it might be someone fixing the shower. If they were those of a kid, it might be one of the other children up to some mischief.

So very slowly, he leaned forward to have a better look at the cubicle.

To his surprise, there were no legs to be seen. There was _no one_ behind the curtain.

Perhaps the pipe had somehow got unblocked and the water had started falling. That could be a plausible explanation.

Yet Haru had the distinct impression that the water was meeting some obstacle on its way to the floor, if the way it was splashing around was anything to go by.

Not to mention that the squealing noise Haru had heard before was suspiciously similar to the sound of a rusty tap being turned on.

A part of him was tempted to go there, open the curtain and see with his own eyes what was happening. Haru had never considered himself especially brave, but he just needed to see for himself why the shower had started to work suddenly, and in such a strange way.

He had only taken two tentative steps towards the stall when he heard something that made his blood run cold.

Someone was _humming_ inside that cubicle.  Haru was sure that it was not the buzz of any nearby machine. Although he didn't recognize the song, it was clear that there was a melody.

_ A child-like voice softly humming a melody that sounded almost like a lullaby. _

Horrified, Haru ran to the door, almost tripping while he tried to flee as fast as he could.

He rushed through the corridor and just when he was about to reach the hall, he realised that he had left his bag in the locker room.

He knew that his keys were there, but he didn't care. He would ask Makoto if he could stay at his place that night.

He pushed the door open with all his might and ran away from that building in which he didn't feel safe for the first time in his life.

. . . .

The next day, Haru told Nagisa what had happened in the locker room. He had told Makoto the previous night when he had knocked on his door and had asked him to let him spend the night there.

He didn't want Rin to know, though, since he had been such a jerk when Nagisa had told him about the mysterious conversation they had overheard the other day.

Haru had waited until Rin had left to tell Nagisa because he didn't want to give him yet another reason to tease them.

When he finished his story, his friend was looking at him in horror.

"Do you think there's really a ghost here?" Nagisa asked, making an effort to keep his voice firm. His pale face was a better indication of what he felt.

"I don't know," Haru said truthfully. It was hard to believe, but it _had to_ be a ghost.

"Perhaps it's the ghost of the kid who drowned here years ago…" Nagisa thought out loud.

"What are we going to do?" Makoto inquired while he nervously pulled at a loose thread in his towel.

"Nothing," Haru replied. "What else can we do? I ran away as fast as I could and I couldn't even explain to coach Sasabe why I had left my bag in the locker room without feeling like a fool! We can't tell anyone, and the locker room is perfectly normal now, so…"

"Perhaps we can wait until everyone is gone and see if it happens again!" Nagisa suggested, looking overly excited.

Haru and Makoto accepted reluctantly. In all honesty, Haru just wanted to know if it had been some kind of hallucination and he was going crazy. If it happened again and other people saw it, he could rule out that possibility.

They waited until Fumino appeared at the door and told them to go home because he was going to close.

Nothing happened that day, nor the day after.

When they were leaving the locker room at the end of the third day of their vigilance, Haru started to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing and there was something wrong with him. It was a scary thought.

They were on their way to the main door when they heard a noise on the upper floor. It seemed that someone was running up and down the corridor at full speed.

Nagisa slowly approached the staircase.

"Nagisa! Come back here!" Makoto whispered as if he didn't want to be heard by whoever was making that noise above their heads.

Nagisa didn't listen to him and didn't stop walking until his hand touched the bannister.

"Tsk," Haru clicked his tongue. After his own experience in the shower, he felt that it wouldn't be alright for Makoto and him to go home and leave Nagisa there on his own.

He walked towards Nagisa, Makoto following him closely.

The blond boy was completely still, looking up with wide eyes, mouth forming a perfect "o".

The kids had been upstairs a couple of times to help coach Sasabe to bring down some pool noodles form the storage room.

They knew that the corridor had three fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling and that the light was visible if you were at the bottom of the stairs.

But now, on the upper floor, there was nothing but darkness.

Surely, it was impossible to be able to see anything in that corridor, yet someone was running from one end to the other at full speed without tripping or crashing into anything.

"Let's go home, please" Makoto whined behind Haru.

"Ye-yeah," Haru agreed unable to keep his usual cool in the face of such a mystery.

He pulled at Nagisa's sleeve.

"But, Haru-chan, I want to see wh-" Nagisa started to protest, but Haru shut him down.

"No, it's dark upstairs, if we turn on the lights coach Sasabe will catch us red-handed and we'll get in trouble. It's dangerous to go up like that, and we don't even know what we would find!" Haru tried to reason with his friend.

"Ok," Nagisa pouted, unconvinced, letting himself be pulled away from the staircase.

They left the building without saying another word and Haru was relieved that it seemed that was the end of it.

However, there was a part of him that felt slightly disappointed at the idea of not finding out what was going on in their club.

He wanted to just let it go, but at the same time, he couldn't.

He spent the night wondering if it had been alright to leave just like that. Would he ever feel at home again in that place knowing that such a mystery existed between its walls?

He needed answers, and that's why he felt thrilled -even though he wouldn't admit it aloud-when Nagisa appeared on the club the following day carrying three torches in his backpack.

"Today is the day! We're going to find out if that ghost really exists or not!" the blond announced. "And if we find it, Rin-chan will have to eat his words!" he added with a firm nod.

They spent the evening swimming lap after lap, their bodies in the water and their heads already on the upper floor of the building.

"What's with you today?" Rin asked them at the end of the day. "You seem distracted…" he narrowed his eyes.

"Uh, nothing…" Nagisa replied quickly, wriggling his fingers.

He couldn't have looked more suspicious even if he had tried.

"Ok," Rin said, dragging the word. "I'm leaving, I'll see you tomorrow! Beware the ghost!" he shouted as he walked away,  laughing.

"Just wait and see, Rin-chan," Nagisa mumbled, pouting.

They took their time in the locker room to make sure that everyone was gone before starting their adventure.

Once the room was empty, they ran to the pool area to make sure that Fumino and Tanaka were there cleaning.

Then, they headed to the staircase. They hadn't reached it yet when the peculiar noise they had heard the previous day started again.

And again, the corridor lights were off.

They looked around to check whether the cost was clear and, since they saw no one around, they went upstairs at an agonisingly slow pace.

Haru was the first to reach the upper floor and he pointed his torch at the dark space before them.

The sound of footsteps died at once.

"We shouldn't be here," Makoto kept muttering behind him. "If we're caught, we'll be in trouble!"

"Well, we want to find the truth about the ghost, right? We won't do it if we go from the locker room to the pool and back!" Nagisa passionately defended his idea of exploring the place.

Haru , just like Makoto, _knew_ that they shouldn't be there, but after the last incident, he couldn't just let it go. He needed to understand what was going on.

The sound of footsteps in a dark and supposedly empty area was more than enough reason to begin their investigation there.

They couldn't hear the mysterious noise anymore.

"Where do we go?" Haru whispered.

"The corridor seems empty," Nagisa said pointing his torch at the walls and the floor. "Maybe we can start with the storage room," he suggested.

The light from the torches was not very bright, so it was difficult to see anything that wasn't just right in front of them.

The darkness surrounding them felt heavy, suffocating.

Even though the building was always hot, the temperature in the corridor made Haru shiver.

They walked slowly, their steps uncertain. Halfway through the corridor, Haru slipped, and he grabbed Makoto's arm to keep himself from falling.

"What happened?" Makoto asked, concerned.

"The floor is wet," Haru frowned, pointing his torch at the spot where he had just put his foot.

A small patch of water shone in the weak light. Since Haru had stepped on it, it was impossible to tell whether it had a recognizable shape, but when he lit the corridor some metres ahead of him, he noticed that, on the floor, there was a straight line formed by tiny, feet-shaped puddles.

Makoto gasped but didn't make any move to run away.

Nagisa dropped the torch. "Are those footprints?" he asked while he crouched to retrieve it.

"I think so," Haru replied, the beam of light following the sinister trail.

"Let's see where it goes…" Nagisa started to walk.

Haru grabbed Makoto's arm and followed Nagisa. He didn't want to force Makoto to continue, but he didn't want to leave him alone there, and he knew his friend wouldn't go downstairs without them.

They reached the storage room. The trail disappeared under its door. Whoever had left those footprints was inside.

Haru yanked on the handle as quietly as he could, but to his surprise, it was locked.

He tried again, this time using more strength, but he was unable to open it.

"What's wrong?" Makoto asked, peeking over Haru's shoulder.

"It's locked," Haru frowned.

"It can't be," Makoto shook his head. "Do you remember the first time we came with coach Sasabe to help him? When we left, I couldn't see Nagisa and I was worried that he had locked himself inside accidentally, but coach Sasabe told me that the door can only be locked from the outside."

"Maybe someone came in and left again?" Nagisa asked, tapping his chin.

"That's impossible," it was Haru's turn to shook his head. "Those footprints are recent. If someone had walked around here before we came, they would have dried and disappeared by now. And if someone had left this room just now, we would have seen them."

"So what do we do now? Do we leave because the door is locked, just like that?" Nagisa protested, yanking on the handle to try to open again.

"And what else can we do? The noise can't be heard anymore, the footprints end here and we can't get in," Haru sighed in frustration and disappointment. "Let's go home, there's nothing we can do," he said.

He was upset, and Nagisa seemed on the verge of tears.

"Uh, actually…" Makoto started to speak. His downcast eyes made it impossible for Haru to read his expression.

"What?" Nagisa urged him to continue, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Coach Sasabe keeps a spare key in a cabinet on the corner," Makoto finished pointing to the left, even though Haru was quite sure that none of them could actually _see_ any cabinet.

Haru was surprised that Makoto had indirectly suggested going further. It would have been the perfect chance to keep quiet and go home.

"Makoto… Are you sure?" Haru asked, squeezing Makoto's arm gently.

"Yes," he said with a firm nod. "I'm scared, but… we have come this far and I also want to know what is happening," he blushed slightly as if he was embarrassed to admit that he was curious.

They rummaged through the cabinet and found a dolphin-shaped keychain with only two keys.

Back at the door, they tried the first one to no avail.

The second one offered a certain resistance, but after a bit of struggling, they heard a soft 'click'.

The fact that the key had worked and they could finally see what hid behind the door made Haru feel a mixture of relief and panic.

They took some tentative steps towards the centre of the room.

"He-hello?" Nagisa said, his voice barely audible.

The surrounding darkness remained silent.

The boys moved their torches around, looking for some sign of whatever being had entered the locked room before them.

"There's no one here," Makoto said. It was difficult to say if he was relieved or disappointed.

"It seems that now it's really time to go home," Haru turned to the door.

"Ok," Nagisa sighed. "You know, I really thought we were going to find some-"

_ Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. _

Nagisa words were interrupted by the sound of water drops falling slowly somewhere to their right.

The kids gulped and pointed their torches at the direction the dripping was coming from.

Haru, flanked by Nagisa and Makoto, could feel his friends grabbing his arms in fear.

"Hello?" he asked, but again, no one replied.

They walked slowly towards the source and found a pile of plastic boxes. It seemed to come from behind that stack.

Very carefully, Haru and Makoto moved the boxes aside one by one while Nagisa lit them with his torch.

Before they could finish, the dripping sound stopped, but they decided to continue their work.

Once all the boxes had been removed, they lit the area.

There was a big puddle on the floor. Even in the darkness of the room, the water looked crystal clear under the light of the torches they held on their trembling hands.

Haru couldn't understand why he was shaking so badly. Water drops falling from somewhere were likely to form a puddle, that was something really simple. And there was nothing supernatural about falling drops. A pipe leaking or a hole in the roof were very plausible explanations.

Yet there was something creepy about that seemingly harmless puddle. He couldn't put it into words, but he could feel it in his bones.

That puddle shouldn't be there.

He crouched to inspect it more closely, and Nagisa and Makoto followed suit.

A prickling sensation on the back of his neck, as if someone was _staring_ at him, made his hair stand on end.

He had the distinct impression that they weren't alone in the storage room. There was no doubt now that there was something there, something unexplainable and terrifying, lurking in the dark.

Something _or someone_.

He found himself wanting to scream, but his voice wouldn't come out.

He could feel a presence just behind them. For a moment, he thought he felt a cold breath blowing on his skin. He could almost _hear_ it.

He wanted them to run, but he was too scared to turn around.

"What the hell is going on here?!" coach Sasabe's angry voice reached them from the doorstep.

Startled, they screamed at the top of their lungs while the lights flickered to life after coach Sasabe turned them on.

"Stop screaming!" he demanded, and they obeyed as they calmed down.

Coach Sasabe was a nice man, and although he was strict, Haru had never seen him annoyed until that moment.

He was looking at them with his arms crossed over his chest, disappointment written all over his face.

"Makoto," he sighed, "I didn't tell you about the spare key so that you could come and play with your friends here," he shook his head, his eyes closed.

"I know, I'm sorry," Makoto mumbled. Haru knew his friend was about to cry.

"It's not Makoto's fault," he said. Coach Sasabe turned to look at him. "I told them that I had been hearing a noise and…" he continued, even though he hadn't really thought of a proper excuse. They couldn't really say they were looking for a ghost, could they?

"We heard water!" Nagisa suddenly shouted. Well, that was not a proper excuse, either, but it was better than nothing. And it was not a lie, either. They _had actually heard_ the sound of water.

"You heard water," Coach Sasabe repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yes! And there's a puddle! See?" Nagisa said excitedly, pointing at the puddle that didn't seem that threatening anymore.

"We heard water dripping," Makoto explained, hands behind his back and eyes to the floor.

Coach Sasabe forgot about his anger for a moment.

"There must be a leak somewhere," he rubbed his face, suddenly looking very tired. "Go home," he finally sighed. "I don't want to see you here on your own again. If I find you here without permission, I'll talk to your parents and you'll be expelled. Am I clear?" he finished, his stare hard.

"Yes, sir," the kids said at the same time.

They left the room in silence, and no one spoke a word until they were out of the building.

"Well, we didn't find anything about the ghost, but at least now we know that the dripping was a leak," Makoto smiled trying to defuse the tension.

Haru shook his head.

"When coach Sasabe turned on the lights, I had a look around and inspected the ceiling and the wall," he said.

"And?" Makoto and Nagisa asked, wide-eyed.

"They were completely dry."

. . . .

Haru , Makoto and Nagisa avoided the topic of the storage room for the next days. Somehow, they felt drained after being so close to discover what was happening just to end up scolded by coach Sasabe. They hadn't lost their motivation, but they would have to be more cautious in whatever they did next.

Not that they actually _knew_ what to do next. They hadn't heard any more strange sounds. They hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. They didn't know where to begin.

They assumed that they would have to wait until the ghost acted again to have another chance at investigating.

And the chance presented itself sooner than they expected.

"You three are very quiet lately," Rin said at the end of the third day after the incident when they were in the locker room getting ready to go home.

"Are we?" Haru just shrugged. He wasn't a talkative person, so it was somehow surprising that Rin found him even quieter than usual.

"Well, yes. It seems that you are in your own world. Like, your head is somewhere else all the time. Are you ok?" Rin elaborated, concern marring his features.

"We can't tell you," Nagisa said, averting Rin's eyes.

"Why?" Rin asked, his eyes wide open. His face showed just surprise, but his voice sounded hurt.

"You'll make fun of us again," Nagisa pouted and crossed his arms over his chest.

Realisation dawned on Rin. Nagisa hadn't been very cryptic, after all.

"Wait, is this about that ghost of yours again?" Rin smirked. Haru had the impression that he was making an effort to stop himself from laughing.

"See? You're doing it again!" Nagisa shouted pointing an accusatory finger at Rin.

"Ok, ok, don't get mad!" Rin smiled, shaking his head and lacing his trainers. "If you really believe this place is haunted…" he shrugged. "Just be careful. Not all the ghosts are as friendly as Casper. Maybe there is an evil spirit here!" he stood up and started to walk in circles around Nagisa, raising his arms in the air and using a voice that probably was supposed to be scary.

"Stop it!" Nagisa said and pushed him away without much strength.

Rin just laughed. "See you tomorrow, scardy cats!" he waved at them and left the locker room.

"I don't know what's so funny about a ghost," Nagisa mumbled.

"Don't listen to him," Haru advised. "The angrier you seem, the more he will laugh."

Nagisa just sighed.

They got into the stalls to have a shower before leaving.

When they got out of the shower, Haru felt something had changed in the locker room. It could be due to the heat and the condensation, but the air felt oppressive.

He just wanted to get dressed and go home.

"Can we hurry? I really want to leave," he said. He couldn't understand why his mood was suddenly so dark.

"Yeah, sure," Makoto said. The look in his eyes was proof that he was eager to leave too. But when he had taken his T-shirt out of his bag, he froze. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at some place behind Haru.

"What?" Haru turned around.

"There, in the mirror," Makoto replied, slowly approaching the sink.

Haru joined him and examined the mirror, narrowing his eyes.

On the right side of the flat surface, a small handprint was clearly visible in the misted up glass.

Nagisa gulped. "That wasn't here before."

"No, it wasn't," Makoto confirmed, even if it wasn't necessary.

They started to look around frantically, searching for other clues of the ghost's presence. They looked inside the shower stalls they hadn't used, inside the open lockers, even under the benches. But they couldn't find anything.

If the ghost had really been there, it had already left.

"What do we do know?" Makoto asked. "I have the feeling that the ghost keeps trying to get our attention and whenever we get near, it just runs away!" he whined.

"I've read that ghosts appear because they have unresolved issues in the living world," Nagisa explained. Haru wondered if he had been reading about the topic because of their own experience.

"So maybe it wants our help to solve those issues?" Makoto asked. Leave it to Makoto to worry about a ghost's needs, Haru thought.

"It could be," Nagisa said. "Our only option is to ask it directly!" he said, excitement shining in his eyes.

"But how can we do that if it keeps disappearing?" Haru asked. "It's just like Makoto said, the ghost must have known we were here and left the handprint, but didn't wait for us to get out of the shower…" he was at a loss.

"Perhaps it needs to know that it can trust us. It's watching us. It wants us to know it's there, but doesn't want to show itself yet," Nagisa pondered.

"There's only one way to know. We're going to catch it red-handed," Haru stated.

"But how are we going to do that?" Makoto asked, his eyebrows almost meeting his hairline.

"Well, the day it came to the locker room, I wasn't supposed to be here, and now it has come for a second just when we were showering. It avoids us. Tomorrow, we're going to pretend we are gone, but we'll hide behind those lockers. If it thinks the room is empty, it might come" Haru explained.

He knew the plan was far from being perfect as it was solely based on the assumption that the ghost would only visit rooms in the building when it expected that no one would find it.

Haru thought that was actually a strange behaviour for a spirit. If it didn't want to be seen, it could just vanish into thin air.

On the other hand, he didn't know much about ghosts. Perhaps they couldn't appear and disappear at will.

In any case, that was the only idea he could come with to finally meet the elusive being.

They got dressed while they fine-tuned their plan and when they parted ways, they were feeling quite optimistic about the outcome.

. . . .

"So," Rin asked as soon as they finished showering, "did you see the ghost or what?" he smirked while he got his clothes out of his bag. It was obvious that he was just teasing them again.

Haru was so looking forward to finding evidence of the ghost's existence just to shove it in Rin's face.

"What do you care? You don't believe in it anyway," he replied as calmly as he could.

His ambiguous response seemed to pique Rin's interest.

"So you saw it?" he said, eyes wide in surprise.

"We didn't," Makoto sighed. He didn't say more.

They had agreed on pretending to have dropped the ghost topic in front of Rin so that he wouldn't make fun of them.

"We're going to take a break from the whole thing," Nagisa said.

"Ha! So you have finally surrendered! I knew I was right, there is no ghost and you were just scared of nothing!" Rin smiled triumphantly as if he had won some competition that none of them had actually started.

"Don't be that full of yourself," Haru shrugged. "This has nothing to do with you," he fixed his stare on Rin, who looked down guiltily.

"Ah, sorry, sorry, don't be like that," Rin apologised. "I just found it so funny because you were so serious about it and honestly, a ghost? Who would take such a thing so seriously?" he laughed, but there was no malice in the way he spoke.

"Yeah, well… A kid drowned here, after all…" Nagisa said as if that explained everything.

"Well, that's right," Rin sighed. "Ah, I really have to go. Are you coming?" he asked.

"Not yet, I can't find my cap," Nagisa said, looking around as if he was searching for it. "But we'll leave in a sec," he added.

"I can't wait, sorry, I'm in a hurry. See you tomorrow!" he ran out of the locker room.

"Ok, so what do we do now?" Makoto asked once Rin was gone.

"We hide there," Haru pointed at the dark corner behind the last row of lockers, "and we wait."

Makoto and Nagisa just nodded in agreement.

The three children squeezed together in their hiding place to make sure that there wasn't a single part of them that was visible to anyone entering the room.

After ten endless minutes, they finally heard someone cracking the door open.

They held their breath, hoping that it wasn't one of the employees making sure that the place was empty before locking the building.

Haru felt his heart drumming against his chest so wildly that he thought the newcomer might hear it.

Finally, the person walked into their line of vision and Haru had to keep himself from gasping.

He could feel Makoto and Nagisa moving slightly next to him, probably as surprised as he was.

_ It was Rin _ .

He walked towards the mirror and looked at his reflection. He didn't put any expression. He didn't pull any face. He just stared into his own eyes and touched the glass.

Then he turned away and left the locker room.

Haru , Makoto and Nagisa left their hiding place, too shocked to comprehend what had just happened.

They approached the mirror. A handprint which was the same size as the one they had seen the day before attracted their attention.

They should have called out to Rin the moment they saw him touching the mirror and ask him what he was doing, but they were just too surprised to do anything.

"I don't understand…" Nagisa shook his head. "How can Rin be the ghost?" he looked around as if he was expecting to find the answer written on one of the walls.

"He's not a ghost!" Haru roared angrily.  "I can't believe it! That Rin Matsuoka! I can't believe he's been pranking us _all this time_!"  he threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

"I don't know," Makoto said, doubt filling his green eyes. "How did he do all those things?"

"Well, we'll have to ask him, but I guess it's not that difficult. I mean, after all, all the 'strange things' that have happened are noises and water puddles!" Haru realised that he was shouting and lowered his voice.

Makoto and Nagisa were looking at him, expectant.

"Think about it. First, the thing with the shower in the locker room," he started to count with his fingers. "He found the way to make the shower work, turned on the tap while I was still in my stall and ran to hide. He could have hidden in the same spot we did just now! Then he hummed that song and I fled like an idiot. Second, the noise in the corridor upstairs. He could, I don't know, record himself running at home and then play that recording so that we would think someone was running there. And he might have known about the spare key, just like Makoto! He could have left the footprints, enter the storage room, spill some water on the floor and then hide somewhere in the corridor and play the footsteps sound! And then, the thing with the hand in the mirror…" he shook his head, frustrated.

"But why would he do that? I mean, that goes beyond the usual prank…" Makoto asked.

"Because he wants us to stop coming to train!" Nagisa shouted, hitting the palm of his hand with his fist, finally understanding what was going on.

"Exactly," Haru nodded. "He joined our club claiming he wanted to swim with me and told us that story about a child drowning here years ago and then he pulls all these pranks to scare us. He has been planning on returning to Sano all this time. After all, he keeps talking about how awesome Sano's swimmers are and what a great club it is and whatnot."

"And we just fell like fools. We were so convinced that there was something supernatural about it that we didn't realise a normal person could do all those things if they plan them beforehand…" Nagisa regretted, slouching his shoulders.

"Well, it's over now. We will confront him about it tomorrow," Haru stated firmly. He felt disappointed and sad. He had found Rin too "intense" at first, but now, he thought they were friends.

Discovering Rin's ploy hurt more than he expected. It was all a lie.

"He must be having the time of his life right now telling his Sano friends how scared we were," Haru clenched his fists. He had never considered himself an aggressive person, but he was sure he would have punched Rin if he had been there.

"Let's go home for now," Makoto said, trying to calm his friends down. "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

. . . .

"Hello, guys!" Rin cheered them the next day with a happy smile.

Haru had to bite his tongue to stop himself from replying quite rudely to the greeting.

He had talked about it with Makoto and Nagisa. They expected that their conversation with Rin would be unpleasant and they didn't want to have it in front of everyone.

For now, they would just pretend everything was fine.

They mumbled a greeting too, but their lack of enthusiasm must have been too evident because Rin just frowned, clearly confused.

The evening passed faster than Haru expected. Rin had tried to start a conversation several times, but none of the others was in the mood for it, not even as a pretence.

In the locker room, all of them showered and dressed in silence. At that point, it was clear Rin had finally understood that something was wrong and the tension in the air was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.

The time to go home finally came, and they had taken just a step out of the building when Rin finally broke the awkward silence.

"So, are you going to explain what's wrong? What's with you today?" he blurted out. He seemed angry but, most of all, he seemed hurt.

_ 'He really has the nerve to act as if he cared' _ , Haru thought.

"You are a liar, Rin-chan!" Nagisa was the first to reply.

"What? When have I lied to you?" Rin asked with a deep frown.

Haru thought that his puzzlement seemed genuine, and that pissed him off even more.

"All the time, from the very beginning," he said narrowing his eyes, unable to keep his anger at bay any longer.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Rin said taking a step back.

"You came here claiming you wanted to swim with me and we believed you," Haru made an effort to keep his voice low.

"And that's true, I wa-" Rin tried to say something, but Haru wouldn't let him.

"You even made up a story about your grandma talking about a child who had drowned here, and then you started with noises and the puddles!"

"What noises? What puddles?! I don't understand what you're saying!" Rin tried to defend himself. His voice sounded desperate.

"You have been trying to scare us all the time!" Haru was relentless now. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nagisa was nodding, his lips pressed in a thin line. "But we have finally caught you! You wanted us to stop coming to train so that you and your Sano friends wouldn't have to worry about us in the upcoming tournament!" he accused Rin.

"No!" Rin shouted. Haru could see tears welling up in his red eyes, but he didn't care.

"Was it fun? Tell us, Rin, was it fun for you to play with us like that?" he asked, hands on his hips.

"And how did you do all those things? You had it all very well planned, didn't you?" Nagisa chimed in.

Rin was sobbing now and he wasn't even trying to defend himself anymore.

"And how long have you and your friends been thinking about this?" Haru asked again, feeling more riled up with every passing second. Nagisa was shouting some other question at the same time. "I can't believe you would d-" he was saying when he felt Makoto's hand gently touching his arm.

"Enough," Makoto said in a soft voice. Haru turned to him. He had his other hand placed on Nagisa's arm.

Haru took a deep breath to calm down. Rin was a crying mess in front of him, shaking his head, sniffling and rubbing his eyes furiously.

"You know what? We don't even want to know. If you wanted us to get to trust you so that it would be easier to deceive us, you did a great job, Matsuoka," he said, his voice made of ice.

A part of him felt he was being too harsh, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't easy for him to make friends, and it was so painful to be betrayed like that. "I guess you'll go back to Sano as soon as you can. In the meantime, we can't stop you from coming here, but don't talk to us again," he finished. 

Without saying a word, Rin turned around and ran away from them. They looked at his retreating back until he disappeared into a dark alley.

"Well, it's over," Haru sighed. Once he had released all the tension, he felt exhausted.

Both Makoto and Nagisa were looking at the floor, uncomfortable.

"If we have the right to be annoyed, why do I feel so bad about this?" Makoto asked no one in particular.

Haru felt the same, and apparently so did Nagisa, if the look in his teary eyes was anything to go by.

"Perhaps we've been too hard on him," Haru conceded, "but it's alright. I'm sure we'll meet him again in the next tournament. Things will have cooled off by then and we'll have the chance to talk again. It will be fine," he said, not sure if he was trying to convince the others or himself.

. . . .

The next day, when Haru, Makoto and Nagisa approached the club building, they saw a girl standing alone by the door. She seemed to be trying to take a peek inside.

Her fiery red hair immediately caught Haru's attention.

"Who's that?" Nagisa whispered when they were close to the girl.

Makoto and Haru shrugged. When they were reaching the door, Haru had a better look at her features. Those red eyes were unmistakable.

"She looks like Rin," Makoto pointed out. Haru had thought exactly the same thing.

Apparently, they were already within earshot when Makoto had made that remark because, at the mention of Rin's name, the girl froze and stared at them as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Did you just say Rin?" she asked, hurrying to meet them, her eyes fixed on Makoto.

"Uh, yeah," Makoto rubbed his neck averting the girl's eyes.

"My name is Gou Matsuoka," she introduced herself.

"Oh, you're Rin-chan's sister!" Nagisa exclaimed. Haru realised that he was not really surprised at the fact that Nagisa hadn't dropped the friendly suffix of Rin's name after what had happened the previous evening.

"Rin-chan?" she asked, looking at Nagisa with a sad smile painted on her lips.

They remained silent for several seconds while Gou stole another glance at the door of the club. The situation was starting to become a bit awkward.

"What are you doing here?" Haru asked straight to the point. He didn't mean to sound rude, but he could feel a growing anxiety clutching at his chest. Why had Rin's sister appeared at the club the day after their quarrel?

Gou finally set her eyes on Haru.

"You are Haruka Nanase, aren't you?" she said in a voice so soft that Haru could barely hear her.

"Yes," he replied. How did she know who he was?

"I remember the day my brother came home after a race in which you two took part," she said. "Since that day, he wouldn't stop speaking about how great it would be to swim with you," she took a deep breath. Her eyes were shining.

An unexplainable fear started to settle in the pit of Haru's stomach. There was something about that girl that made him uncomfortable, but it was difficult to pinpoint what it was.

"Why are you here?" he repeated his question, having a foreboding feeling that he wasn't going to like the answer.

He could feel Makoto and Nagisa's growing tension, too.

"I wanted to see this place," she replied. "I wanted to meet _you_ ," she stared at him. "My brother really wanted to be friends with you. He was obsessed with swimming a relay with the best team he could find, and he was fascinated by your swimming. He even convinced our mom of letting him come to live with our grandma so that he could come to this club," she looked at the building and sighed. "I've come here because I really wanted to tell you that you were a true inspiration for Rin. I think he would have liked you to know" she smiled at him, but the warmth reflected on her lips didn't reach her eyes.

And then every piece fell into its place. Haru was finally able to say exactly what made him feel so uncomfortable about Gou Matsuoka.

The sad smile plastered on her face.

The lack of light in her eyes, _the lack of life_ , even though they were bright with unshed tears.

The way she kept clutching the straps of her backpack until her knuckles were white.

The fact that she kept using the past tense to talk about what Rin felt.

Had something happened to Rin on his way home last night? The image of a crying Rin disappearing into the darkness of a solitary, narrow street came to his mind as clear as if he was seeing it right then.

They shouldn't have let him leave like that.

"Where is Rin?" he heard himself asking, although he was not even conscious of moving his lips.

Gou looked at him and blinked several times.

"What do you mean with 'where is Rin'?" she sounded angry.

When Haru didn't reply and just looked at her with pleading eyes, the annoyance shown on her face turned into confusion, and, finally, into realisation.

"Oh, of course," she said, any trace of anger erased from her voice. "You don't know."

"What? What is it that I don't know?" Haru begged her to explain.

"My brother was hit by a car when he went for his morning run," she said. "Rin was severely injured, there was nothing the doctors could do. He passed away in the hospital," she whispered, thick tears running down her cheeks.

That couldn't be happening. They had seen him just the previous day. And they had had a terrible argument. An argument that suddenly seemed very silly, especially because according to Gou, Rin hadn't been lying when he said he joined the Iwatobi SC to swim with Haru.

That wasn't fair. How were they supposed to know that Rin would die the next morning and they wouldn't have the chance of making up? How could they know that it would be the last time they would meet their friend?

Haru heard Makoto and Nagisa sobbing behind him.

"I'm… I'm really sorry," he lowered his head, sad and ashamed.

"Thank you," Gou replied. Her voice was kind, even though she didn't smile.

Haru had to muster all his strength to say his next words. "We… we would like to pay our last respects to him. When will the funeral be held?" he managed to ask, his mouth dry and his eyes wet.

Gou frowned at the question.

"His funeral? It was already held," she replied, confusion written all over her face.

That was a surprise for Haru. He didn't know how long it took to prepare a funeral, but he doubted it could be done in just some hours.

"It was already held?" he repeated Gou's words. "I don't understand… The accident happened this morning, right?" he gulped. His whole body was trembling.

Gou just shook her head.

"Rin died five weeks ago."

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language and I don't have a beta reader, so I apologize for all the mistakes I probably have made.  
> It's my first time writing a "scary" story, I hope it was at least interesting.  
> I've come to understand that it is useless to ask for feedback, but if you read this and you like it, it would be nice if you could leave a kudos or a comment.


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